Tag Archives: marine

Aki-ba-ri (self force-feeding)

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 General Information about Item:
  • Genre and Sub Genre –  Cutomary Folklore: Rituals / Rites of Passage
  • Language – English
  • Country where Item is from – South Korea

Informant Data:

DongHyun Lee is a 23-year old male from South Korea. He is currently a sophomore at University of Hong Kong. He has served in the Republic of Korea (ROK) Marine Corps from June 23rd 2014 to March 22nd 2016. He was stationed in a battalion in Yeong Pyeong Island, one of the northern most islands closer to North Korea than South Korea. His job was a machine gun marksmen for the first half of his service time and a cook for the second half.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context – DongHyun Lee was interviewed over Skype because he is currently located in Hong Kong. He got assigned to his unit in Yeong Pyeong Island after finishing 7 weeks of boot camp. He recalls being very nervous and confused, as he felt he was not quite ready to face the reality of confronting his seniors.
  • Cultural Context – The ROK Marine culture is extremely hierarchical. Throughout the 21-month service period, ROK marine culture climb up the strict hierarchy divided by the number of months each marine has served. Each month has a special name, a code of conduct, and rites of passages which are unofficially yet universally maintained by the conscripted soldiers (from ranks E1 to E5). Thus, whatever your senior soldiers want you to do for them, you have to do it unless you are ready to face some grave consequences which often includes collective violence and further hazing.

Item:

  • Aki-ba-ri (transalted as “exertion of willpower to the extreme level”)  – On the first day of his arrival at the unit, two sergeants (E5) in his company came up to him asked him what he wanted to eat right now. When he answered he wanted to eat spicy instant noodles, right away he was forced to eat 8 portions of the noodles in one sitting, after which he vomited. This was the beginning of initiation rites that he had to endure until he got promoted to corporal (E4).

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

Can you give me your experience with Aki-ba-ri?

Sure, sure… on the first day, the sergeants… came to me and asked, “Hey noobie… what do you want to eat right now?”

At first, I said, “I’m fine, thank you,” because I was so nervous, but then they were like, “come on, we will give you a treat.”

They were quite friendly when they actually asked… Back then I wanted to eat [spicy instant chicken noodles]… The sergeants said, “Okay, we will buy you [spicy instant chicken noodles].”

So I came to this… PX so I grabbed one [spicy instant chicken noodles]. But then, the sergeant was like, “hey, you only eat one?? Come on, you can do better than that.”

So I had to pick another one. But this guy kept insisting me to grab more and more, as if 2 or 3 weren’t enough. So eventually I got 8 of them… And I had to eat them all.

In one sitting or throughout the day?

It was one meal. And I eventually vomited, becuase my stomach couldn’t endure the pain.

What was their reaction after you finished eating?

After I finished, they were like “NIce job man, you are awesome.” But I could tell it was… sarcasm, obviously.

Informant’s Comments:

Informant was able to laugh over this recollection now, but he was definitely upset and scared at that time.

Collector’s Comments:

The informant’s direct experience with this initiation is very authentic and expressive. It is a widespread hazing ritual sometimes even publicized in the South Korean media, but it was the first time the collector had heard a full version of an actual experience.

Collector’s Name:

Jeong Tae Bang

 

Marine Corps Marching Cadence

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Title: Marine Corps Marching Cadence

Informant info: Craig Serpa, marine. He was stationed in San Diego.

Type of lore: Customary, Ritual

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Craig Serpa was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Craig sent me a video of this after our interview via text. He believed it was a good example of a marching cadence.

Associated file: https://youtu.be/88QzxcPtZXo 

Transcript:

Informant’s comments: Craig was a drill instructor, and often ran this ritual himself.

Collector’s comments: Informant remembered this cadence afterward, and wanted to show me a video of it. It was very interesting to visually see it, rather than talk about it.

Hey Josephine

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Hey Josephine

Informant info: Craig Serpa, marine. He was stationed in San Diego.

Type of lore: Customary, Music

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Craig Serpa was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Craig was asked about any folk songs that he remembered singing during training or being stationed at base camp. Craig was a drill instructor, so he remembered many. I asked him to talk about they they sang.

Associated file: 

Transcript:

C: There’s, we have, so our cadence is something we are known for. I was a drill instructor so I made marines. You can look up on youtube a video of me singing cadence.

Interviewer: Oh just type in your name?

C: Yeah so just put, idk how long 5-6 min when I actually start singing and walking the group. Another thing that we do that I am sure that the army does too, I’m not sure, but instead of doing just regular walking cadence and stuff, a lot of runs are done with cadences, where we sing songs that tell funny stories. And then hiking. When you’re doing the long hikes and you have your packs on and everything, we have like hike specific songs that tell stories about being back home, and what happened like if I die tell my mom I did my best with my medals across my chest. And they do that I think just to keep your mind off the shit you’re going through. Like you have 80 lbs on your back, its been 3 days and you’ve slept an hour and a half, sing a song. And its like, if you have a good platoon lader, they like actually sing and get into it. It kinda gets you going. Really what I was told, the purpose of doing all of that—forces your to expand your lungs- It benefits you from hypervenhilating. It keeps you breathing in a rhythm.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of them? You probably remember all of them. Do you have your favorite song? You can speak it, you don’t have to sing it.

C: Probably Hey Josephine. 1st sg. Pharo when I was a drill instructor with bravo company. I’m not going to sing or anything, if you look up the legendary marine core drill instructure—there’s a cd with some of the more famous DI in the last 20-30 year. Actual cadence song. All of us use it and kinda memorize it and stuff and try to get all of the songs down. Some of them tell stories of WWI, Korea, Kayson, Bell Wood and all of that stuff

Informant’s comments: Craig told me that singing was something that helped them get through the hard times, which we often see in history. Craig said that men would buy the CD full of hiking songs so that they could memorize them. The songs never change from year to year.

Collector’s comments: Informant was nervous to sing, and refused to but he told me I could look up the song. He seemed very fond of the songs, and said he could remember every word.

Marine Core Birthday Ball Celebration

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Marine Core Birthday Ball Celebration

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Title: Birthday Ball Celebration

Informant info: Craig Serpa, marine. He was stationed in San Diego.

Type of lore: Customary, Ritual, Celebration

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Craig Serpa was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Craig was asked about any folklore or stories related to his training. He described what he thought of as folklore and then told me about the Marine Birthday Ball Celebration. Every year the Marine Core holds a ball in order to celebrate the birthday of the marine core. At every birthday, there is a cake cutting ceremony where the oldest marine and the youngest marine are honored by getting the first pieces of cake, which represents passing on tradition from the old to the new. The also play the commandants message.

Associated file:

Transcript:

Interviewer: Well now I have fun things to talk about. Did you hear any ghost stories, during training or while you were stationed. So its all about folklore—so any ghost stories related, or really any stories at all—legends, myths, related to your base camp or training experience.

C: So when I think of folklore, I think of passed down oral traditions. Mainly. The marine core actually, we have, a specific marine core order that deals with the marine core birthday. Nov 10, 1775—have a birthday ball celebration every year, and its, they, part of the actual military order is we have a cake cutting ceremony and then the oldest marine and the youngest marine are honored in the cake cutting ceremony where they present themselves the first piece of cake and its supposed to resemble the passing on of the traditions from the oldest to the youngest marine and there’s always—you play the commandants message—birthday message is played every year. And they do the reading of the 14th commandant marine core—general Lejeune? Reread his birthday message as part of the military order now every single year. So that’s a past tradition, oral tradition.

Ghost stories? I would say no.

Informant’s comments: Craig told me that a celebration happens around the world no matter where you are. He said that for most marines, most of their fondest memories happened at this ball.

Collector’s comments: Craig was very excited to tell me about this tradition. He said that this was his favorite event of the year.